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Where have all the iOS games gone?

minotaurproject.co.uk

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Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#201

Post by freehunter »

NEDM64 wrote: post #150
freehunter wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. All I want is something like boxcar2d.com that runs on iOS. It exists on Android, but the web version is Flash and even the HTML5 clone is far too slow in mobile Safari. I like leaving it running while I work on other things, checking on it like a fish tank.

So your problem has nothing to do with search, but it's simply a game that isn't available on the AppStore. What did you expect? The search to port the game for you?

You do realize that my comment was in a reply to someone asking what games a person would like to see developed, and in particular, what games are actually missing from the app store, right? Nothing to do with being able to find them. The idea is that they don't exist at all. So yes. You're completely right.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#202

Post by hinkley »

Ntrails wrote: post #169
hinkley wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago when one of my social circles decided to play WoW together, most of us found we had more money in the bank at the end of the month. It was far cheaper entertainment per day than most of the other options we would choose. One night out for drinks and you've paid more than a monthly subscription.

I feel like you're ignoring the ancillary cost of grinding heroics until the early morning hours with friends. There were some large pizzas, a bunch of soft drinks, and probably a packet of biscuits to accompany Tea... That's gotta be at least a couple of rounds of drinks each :D

When I said we had more money in the bank at the end of the month, that wasn't a figure of speech. I meant that we had more money in the bank.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#203

Post by kefka_p »

jawngee wrote: post #178
kefka_p wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not the person to whom the question was directed, I'd offer that the move from QuickTime to AVFoundation (taken directly from iOS) & friends (CoreMedia, CMIO) was one such example. Core Media I/O was released a few years ago to replace vdig and/or sequence grabber IIRC. Despite being released a few years back, the only documentation available for CMIO is a sample project. AVFoundation was limited in terms of co…

Are you kidding? AVFoundation is in nearly every way superior to QuickTime, minus the fact that you couldn't make ref movies with it until El Capitan. QuickTime's API sucks in comparison. Source: I write a video editor for macOS.

Not kidding at all. There was a lot of noise during the transition on various mailing lists, as I recall. Even as an end-user the issue presented quite a few problems. While AVFoundation is generally a better API it remains less capable than the QuickTime umbrella was. Again refer to the functionality provided by vDig and Sequencer APIs. A simple case: try to slap together a video mixing app sometime that takes input from the camera or other source, processes some effects on it, and dumps the output back as pseudo device that can be used by other apps. Unless things have changed drastically the last time I looked into the matter, such a thing isn't possible within the constraints of AVFoundation itself. You have to resort to the essentially undocumented CoreMedia IO API. Apple does provide similar functionality for other types of devices at a higher level i.e. scanners, digital cameras via some other API I can't recall off the top of my head at the moment. =]

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#204

Post by madgar »

vonklaus wrote: post #138
spikengineer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is unaffordable to most consumers in the world. You will end up limiting urself to a market of few rich communities in rich countries.

that is not true. again, we aren't talking about a coursera course and paywalling information and vital self-learning here. We are talking about a dollar for a luxury game on a device that costs nearly $1000 and $100 a month for service. This is leaving aside that the economics of $4-5 a game would be better than a free game that is unwinnable unless you spend > $10. I believe the parent, and if not then certainly I,…

> a device that costs nearly $1000 and $100 a month for service

If you're going to make a fiscal argument then don't exaggerate your numbers by 60-120%.

They start at $400 and top out at $750.

If you pay $100/month for service that's your own fault, I don't know anybody paying over $60/month.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#205

Post by josho »

eridius wrote: post #41
retromario wrote: post #24

Yeah it's a challenging market. Just to add another data point, we're small indie (games) developer, we spent over a year on our first title with very little marketing budget and these are our sales figures from our launch: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/YacineSalmi/20160519/273030/E... In short, decent sales but not enough to recoup our costs. Still, we never expected that we would hit gold on the first try. I think…

That game looks pretty neat. You just sold a copy :) But it's a game I've never heard of before, and I'm pretty good about checking the new games lists on the App Store each week. So I think the takeaway from this shouldn't be that premium games (is $2.99 really "premium"?) don't work, but rather that you can't rely on free marketing to sell your game. Once a game falls off the lists, it's pretty hard for people to s…

At $3 a pop there isn't much margin to pay for marketing either.

Leaving higher ARPU (free to pay) or viral customer acquisition. But yeh it's a tough market.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#206

Post by rdsnsca »

intoverflow2 wrote: post #189
freehunter wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between Clash of Clans and GTA V, though. There is nothing on any mobile platform that can compete in any way with any AAA game made in the last 10 years (the most advanced mobile game I see is GTA:SA, which came out in 2004 or KOTOR which came out in 2003). Hypothetically, if someone spends $60 on Candy Crush and $60 on a AAA console release, the Candy Crush developers are seeing a much more mas…

> But the minute I see "buy more gems for $1.99!", I delete the app Why not just play iOS games that you buy outright without IAP then instead of downloading the "free" trash that makes money then getting upset when they try and make money off you.

That what I do, but you get game companies that later go back and change the game to free to play and / or add in a ton of IAP's. Buying outright is no protection in the iOS app store.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#207

Post by roryokane »

If you’re looking for “the free .apks that we have put up for our Android ports of five of the iOS games on this site”, they’re at http://minotaurproject.co.uk/Minotaur/donate.php. The five games are Super Ox Wars, Five a Day, Caverns of Minos, Goat Up, and Gridrunner.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#208

Post by kinnth »

These lists in no way take account of ad revenue. For the average indie game ad revenue now makes up at least 50% of the gross daily revenue or if well integrated can make up 70 or even 90% if the game is an advergame like the Ketchapps one finger frustration games.

There is still quite a lot of revenue in the market place, just like there is on web. You need to be shrewd and think more about business than just creating and releasing a fun game.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#209

Post by freehunter »

themartorana wrote: post #135
freehunter wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between Clash of Clans and GTA V, though. There is nothing on any mobile platform that can compete in any way with any AAA game made in the last 10 years (the most advanced mobile game I see is GTA:SA, which came out in 2004 or KOTOR which came out in 2003). Hypothetically, if someone spends $60 on Candy Crush and $60 on a AAA console release, the Candy Crush developers are seeing a much more mas…

So, GTA brought in 2.5B, not all of Take-Two. By mid-2013 Candy Crush had over 500m downloads, and in 2015 was still pulling over 340m monthly players. By comparison, GTA 5 sold about 235m units total so your apple-to-apple comparisons are not so much. As for "playing their game," I've been in this business since before the iPhone. I didn't choose to work in an industry that raced to the bottom for pricing. Mobile ga…

According to Wikipedia, Take-Two's revenue in 2013 was $2.3b

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take-Two_Interactive

>I didn't choose to work in an industry that raced to the bottom for pricing.

I'm sorry but it doesn't matter how long you've been making games. If you choose to produce mobile games and then choose to make them F2P with IAPs and gems and bullshit, you did make that choice. You don't have to do that. Sure it might be the best way to make money on the iPhone, but selling drugs is a pretty darn good way of making money on the streets. It's a great way to make sure your family can eat. It still makes you a horrible person.

If you were making money before the iPhone, then there's your business model. Otherwise, go back and read your comment again, this time imagining a drug pusher explaining why he sells to addicts. "Sure meth is bad, but hey I'm making money and I'm giving people what they want, you just have to come to grips with the economic realities".

Thanks for killing the industry. Glad you're making a profit though.

Re: Where have all the iOS games gone?

#210

Post by freehunter »

intoverflow2 wrote: post #189
freehunter wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between Clash of Clans and GTA V, though. There is nothing on any mobile platform that can compete in any way with any AAA game made in the last 10 years (the most advanced mobile game I see is GTA:SA, which came out in 2004 or KOTOR which came out in 2003). Hypothetically, if someone spends $60 on Candy Crush and $60 on a AAA console release, the Candy Crush developers are seeing a much more mas…

> But the minute I see "buy more gems for $1.99!", I delete the app Why not just play iOS games that you buy outright without IAP then instead of downloading the "free" trash that makes money then getting upset when they try and make money off you.

I've paid money for more than enough games that pull the "buy more gems" bullshit on top of my purchase price. You can't win.
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